AlgaeFix Dosing

[joanofsnark]

Hi.. I have been fighting algae and algae blooms in my tank for ages. It's likely due to the location of the tank, but I can't change that, unfortunately. So, I thought I'd try AlgaeFix to kill off what's in there to have a better time going forward. I've reduced the light time and gotten a new light (was old and needed to be replaced) and I'm hoping that helps.

The instructions say to dose the water every 3 days, but says nothing about a water change. I wanted to double-check this because it seems to me that without a water change, that would be a double dose in the tank. Or does the medication dissolve somehow?

 

[superpeytonm]

What's your parameters? High nitrates can cause excessive algae growth.

If they're high, water changes will bring them down.

As for the Algaefix, I'm not sure as I've never used it.

 

[Caliban07]

If it's green water algae a uv steriliser will clear the water rapidly. Alternatively remove as much algae as you can and drop lots of floating plants in to the tank as they will help block the light and soak up the nutrients. Algae tends to reside when healthy plants are present.


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[joanofsnark]

What's your parameters? High nitrates can cause excessive algae growth.

If they're high, water changes will bring them down.

As for the Algaefix, I'm not sure as I've never used it.

My water parameters are all pretty normal. When I last tested, nitrates weren't 0, but they were below what I read as acceptable. It's hard to read for nitrates with the API kit; 20 and 40 ppm look to be exactly the same color. In any case, the water was 20-40 ppm for nitrates.

I recently had a big die-off of my fish, which I believe was due to using Rid-Ich (and yeah, I know it's not supposed to kill fish, but it's happened to me twice). During this time of the tank meltdown, I lost count of the number of water changes, but it was quite a few. I also had cleaned the filter a couple of months prior (it's normal with my system to go months without filter maintenance), but I noticed last week that the water was green again.

I just did a filter cleaning (wasn't too gunky), water change, and tried to scrub off some algae from the tank sides. The tank has some very persistent algae on the intake/outake pipes and on the insides of the tank. It's acrylic, so I'm nervous about scrubbing too hard and scratching the plastic.

I try not to use too many chemicals in my tank, but I had the AlgaeFix and I thought I'd give it a try to maybe knock out some of what's in there. I first dosed 3 days ago and I dosed again today. I noticed some red algae on the wood when I did the last maintenance, and that seems to be gone now.

 

[joanofsnark]

If it's green water algae a uv steriliser will clear the water rapidly. Alternatively remove as much algae as you can and drop lots of floating plants in to the tank as they will help block the light and soak up the nutrients. Algae tends to reside when healthy plants are present.

Thanks, I'll check this out!